The president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum says the facility has “pretty much shattered every metric” for attendance since a $64 million renovation, and he extended a personal invitation to Clinton, Carroll and Boone County listeners to come see it for themselves.
Michael Good joined WILO’s Party Line this week for a wide-ranging conversation about the museum, his path from a Youngstown, Ohio, childhood to the “sacred oval,” and what’s next for one of Indiana’s most-visited attractions. The museum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit separate from the speedway itself, closed for 18 months during the renovation and reopened to the public on April 2 of last year.
“We were just nominated by TIME magazine as one of the top 100 destinations on the globe,” Good said. “If you walk by 20 cars [in the parking lot], you’re going to see 12 states represented on the cars’ license plates.”
A Museum That Changes With the Seasons
Good, who previously led the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show — one of the largest trade shows in Indiana, drawing about 70,000 people to downtown Indianapolis each December — said the museum works hard to stay fresh for repeat visitors.
“If you were here six months ago and you come in today, the museum looks different,” Good said. “We’re constantly changing it up and refreshing it, because we want to promote that engagement.”
The museum now spans three floors, holds more than 200 cars and 55,000 artifacts, and hosted over 380 fourth-grade field trips this year. Visitors can change a tire in a simulated pit stop, race friends in driving simulators — including one built to be ADA compliant so a wheelchair can roll right in — and walk through “Gasoline Alley,” a timeline from the first 1911 Indianapolis 500 to the present day. Good called the “Starting Line Experience,” a six-to-seven-minute film on a 20-foot by 60-foot screen, the “goosebumps room.”
“Whether you’re two or 92, there’s something in the museum that will entertain you and create a memorable experience for you,” he said.
160 Cars Getting a New Home
The biggest news from the interview: an 87,000-square-foot restoration and events center already standing just south of the track. The museum can only display about 50 cars at a time, leaving roughly 160 others “in hiding” in an office park near the airport, Good said.
The new building will showcase those cars in a gallery, include a restoration shop where visitors can see the multi-year work behind the finished products, and feature a 4,000-plus-square-foot event space overlooking it all — room for a seated dinner of 250 to 280 people, or about 400 for a networking event.
Good said about 90% of the museum’s cars run and can be taken onto the track, cared for by a restoration team of seven.
Foyt’s Winners to Run Again
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of A.J. Foyt’s fourth Indianapolis 500 win in 1977 — and the museum owns all four of Foyt’s winning cars. “Those four cars will be on the track and running race morning,” Good said. “They’ll do a vintage lap before the actual race.”
The local connection runs deep: Kaspar Broadcasting has been part of the IMS radio network since the ‘60’s, and the host recalled running the board on race day Sundays earlier in his radio career. Good also shared a story about giving a surprise museum tour to Mario Andretti and Reggie Jackson together during race week last year.
The museum, at imsmuseum.org, is open 363 days a year — closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
